Plus
by sunflowerb
Summary: Look back at the screen, Sora. That's your future right there, in between those two white pluses. That's what she's seeing that you aren't. Stop worrying about the finances, and focus on the blessing inbetween those pluses. oneshot. sk. futurefic.


**A/N: Yay, a oneshot. I started this one night when I should have been doing homework, but I just wanted to get the main idea down before I forgot it. Inspired by getting to see my cousin's ultrasound. She and her husband are expecting their first baby in August, and I was inpired by her making a human, but this is not some kinda run-of-the-mill high school pregnancy fic. No. I went for unconventional. Just a little something different than my usual style.**

**Disclaimer: No. But I did beat KH:Re:CoM Reverse/Rebirth about 30 minutes ago. I was going for a guinea pig run on the final boss battle and ended up winning (easily).**

_Plus_

It started with a plus. A little, black plus mark on the dull green screen of the TI-83 calculator as his finger compressed the corresponding button. A single symbol that had changed his life; erasing his worries; financial, academic, romantic; all gone as the answer appeared on the screen below as he added to his current balance the money his father had set aside nineteen years previously for his post-high-school well-being in case anything happened.

Sometimes Sora wonders if his father knew he was going to die.

The percentage of his paychecks he'd set aside into a trust fund; the small bungalow on the coast he'd purchased; all in the months before his son had been born at the same hospital where he worked; two floors below his office. _And eight years before he would die two floors further down._ Then again, his father _had _been a doctor. Perhaps he had just been well enough acquainted with the possiblity of death that he didn't want to take any chances with his famiy's well being. (AN1)

Sora stares at the screen. He blinks once. Twice. Three times. He pushes the button labeled CLEAR and starts over, making sure he is pushing that little white plus instead of the little white multiplication mark two buttons above it. No; there is the little black plus on the screen. He has done it right this time. His finger hesitantly presses the equals button.

The same answer is displayed before him.

"That's plenty…" He whispers to himself. He scribbles the number down on a loose sheet of paper and sits it down next to the college application he's been procrastinating on; but that's really okay because he isn't that impressed with the school anyway. He turns off the calculator and opens the internet on the computer to his left and googles Tiffany's.

Two weeks later he asks Kairi to marry him.

------------

It continued with plus. A little pink plus that Kairi hadn't gathered the courage to tell him about before he found it on accident as he was taking out the trash in the bathroom. At first he thought it was the thermometer. Kairi had been feeling ill that morning, but had been in an awful rush to get to class anyway, and so it made sense to him that she might have taken her temperature, glanced at the clock, and immediately dropped the thermometer onto the sink counter. Of course, it would have bounced off and into the trash.

And this is the story that he kept telling himself as he hesitantly reached to get the thing out of the trash can, even though it looked less and less like a thermometer the closer he got to it.

Thermometers do not tell temperature in little pink plusses.

They couldn't afford a little pink plus.

He keeps mulling this fact over in his head as he sits, almost vegetable like, on the couch in their small bungalow, the one his father had left him. It is small, but cozy; set on the end of a street right above the beach, putting the ocean in their backyard. One small bedroom, two small bathrooms, a small extra room, small living room and small kitchen; meant for a college bachelor, but still a good size for just the two of them.

Space might be an issue, but then again they did have the small extra room… No, money was his primary concern. There had been a lot of little minuses going into the checkbook and not a lot of pluses lately. They'd been doing fine, not extravagantly, but fine, until his supervisor decided to thank him for saving the worlds several times with a lovely little pink slip. All because of downsizing; part time college students weren't needed; at least that was the excuse he was given, although Sora knew good and well that the man simply didn't like him. Of course, his chances of getting a job back weren't exactly improved when Kairi had decided to have a little 'chat' with the management office. He'd heard from a friend that she'd spoken with the supervisor and given him a black eye; but that it wasn't all bad because at least the man could now sing soprano.

"_Well, I figured if they were going to fire you, you might as well deserve it," Kairi had told him, smiling innocently as if she _hadn't_ just assaulted a man twice her age ._

Sora smiles for the moment, before the issue of finances once again invades his thoughts. They'd been making due since then, but this little pink plus would mean a lot more minuses.

-------

Kairi walks in to see her husband sitting on the small sunk-in couch staring at their little pink plus and immediately excuses and explanations start pouring from her mouth; assurances that she was going to tell him, she just wasn't sure how, and that she was going to find a way to bring in more income so they could keep it, and that she really isn't sure how this happened to begin with ("Well, I mean, I know how it _happened,_ I just don't know how it happened."), and that she would at least be able to finish the year of school before she took time off to raise the baby.

And that was when it really hit home. She had actually said the word. Sora hadn't let his mind completely wrap around the fact yet. A baby. A human child. At this moment his wife was making a human. Until then he'd been functioning on the thought: _She's pregnant. Oh, God, she's pregnant… _This was the first time he'd really thought about the obvious fact that the usual end result of a pregnancy was a baby. _His _baby.

He distantly hears Kairi calling his name, and he realizes that while he's spent the last few minutes lost in thought, Kairi's been rambling on with her reassurances. He looks at her, and for the first time notices the look of fear in her eyes. _She's as scared as you are._

Sora feels guilt rise into his throat, choking him. All this time he'd been thinking of finances, and worrying about the practical side of things; never once had he considered how Kairi must be feeling about the whole ordeal. She _was_, after all, the one who was actually going to have the thing. She was the one who was going to have to carry a human around for the next nine months, and then of course actually give birth. Sora doesn't want to think about that part. Kairi has narrow hips. He doesn't see how it's going to work.

Of course they both knew this could happen; they married young, he'd always expected they'd have kids early too; just not _this _early. For Kairi he knew this was more than just an inconvenience. This was something he knew she desperately wanted yet was nowhere near ready for.

He finally puts a finger to her still-rambling lips and waits until she has finally stopped talking. She stares at him, a thin line still resolutely hovering in between her eyes, and Sora notices the line starts to relax as he pulls her closer. They just sit like that for a while; Kairi's head resting in the alcove where his neck meets his shoulders, and Sora's chin resting on her head; while he wraps his arms around her and gently strokes her back; just like they did when they were fifteen and she'd had a bad day. Finally she sighs and looks up at him, and he gives her a reassuring smile.

It's all she really needed.

--------

A couple weeks later Kairi brings home a few pluses.

Her first bit of news makes Sora smile. She'd contacted Radiant Garden to see if it was possible to get at least a little bit of her inheritance early (it figured, Sora thought, that her birth parents had been loaded enough to leave her a ton of money, but prudent enough to set it up so that she couldn't get it until four years _after _their baby was going to be born). While the current government was too stern to make even a small allowance for their dethroned, knocked-up princess, the Restoration Committee had volunteered to raise money to help them pay the bills. (AN2)

Her second bit of news made him frown. "They've got money, Sora." Yes, he knew this. The mayor was paid well. Kairi's parents' life was a life of modest wealth; a life of financial security; a life that Kairi had willingly given up to teeter on the verge of financial ruin with him. Of course, they hadn't been pleased with their nineteen-year-old daughter getting married, even if they had been dating for four years; still, they'd paid for the wedding and the honeymoon and then cut her off from all money that didn't go straight into the collegiate pocket.

Sora didn't care if they were willing to help since there was a child involved. They could make it, he'd insisted, they didn't need her parents' help. Kairi reminded him once that they needed all the help they could get; that he hadn't complained when his mother had offered what little help she could; and then that was the end of that discussion.

At least there were more plusses in the checkbook.

---

Two little white plusses.

The distance between them minute; the magnitude of their existence overwhelming.

Kairi squeezes his hand gently. He glances at her face. She still looks so young, for twenty-one. The nurse had regarded her with pursed lips and raised eyebrows as she'd entered the room, finally remarking as she prepped the ultrasound machine how deplorable society is when teenagers are popping out babies. Sora had to try not to laugh as Kairi very gently informed the woman of her age and marital status. He was still smiling, still distanced from the whole ordeal when the screen finally goes from black to noisy gray. And then the nurse starts using the computer to place those two little plusses on the screen around the area of fluctuating movement and color. There really isn't that much to see yet, but the simple fact that it is there is enough. (AN3)

His eyes drop back to Kairi's face. She is staring at the screen, something like wonder mixed with a look he hasn't seen before painted across her face. There is something of a smile gently arcing on her lips. This face is new to him. She looks excited, but calm. Some kind of love and longing in her eyes, and it takes his breath away. How can she look so calmly happy at a time like this? There is so much to figure out in the coming months, so much to do, and yet she looks as if she can focus on nothing but the grayish area in between those two little white plusses, as if just the thought of that little bit of movement right there was enough to replace the worry with whatever gently happy emotion was currently occupying her face. What did that? What was reassuring her so? What was it that she wasn't seeing, or maybe that _he _wasn't seeing on that screen that gave her such peace?

As the worry further conquered his thoughts, he felt ever so softly a voice in some very back corner of his mind gently answer him.

Look back at the screen, Sora.

That's your future, right there. In between those two white plusses.

* * *

AN1: I like coming up with different explanations for why we don't see Sora's dad. After all, his mother only called him to dinner, it seems to me that it is probably just him and his mom. I've just decided that Sora's dad was at one point in time studying to be a gynacologist, because he wanted to deliver babies; until he realized that his wife resented this career choice, at which point he switched to pediatric oncology. I lurve comin up with back stories.

AN2: Like I said, back stories are fun. I've decided that Kairi's parents were some kind of important and they had money and whether or not she was an actual princess, she'll be coming into some major dough in a few years from her hometown.

AN3: This happened to my mother when I was born. The nurse thought she and my dad were teenagers, which is even more hilarious since she was 26 and Dad was 27.

Yeah, so that's it. Don't know what y'all think, I was trying something a little bit different. It ended up being more complicated then I originally invisioned, but then again, it is supposed to be more complicated when Sora starts thinking too much and forgeting to enjoy the fact that he's gunna be a daddy; whereas its supposed to be simpler when he kinda calms down and remembers that part. I'm thinkin of possibly continueing this. I have a couple of ideas of where I could take it, but I won't do anything with it unless y'all think you'd actually wanna read it. Plus, it'll be a while one way or anohter since I'm drowning in work right now. It's 1 am and I have one day of spring break left. And so much to do. Thanks for reading!!! Review please!


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